Regression

[Guest guest]

So after about three weeks of amazing progress on compulsions and even obsessive

thoughts, my daughter has spent the past week regressing. She's not as bad as

she was - no panic attacks or unbearable anxiety (not quite, anyway), but she's

definitely going backwards. I knew it was too good to be true, that she was on

the path to as much healing as is possible with this illness,and I knew there

would inevitably be setbacks, but the setbacks had been either so small or so

quickly defeated that I thought she was okay.

Now we're back to more disturbing, obsessive sexual thoughts and fears about

what that makes her, more and more compulsions coming up, and some back and

forth with behaviors she thought she had pretty well extinguished. Her

agitation is increasing, and I've got the " OCD is taking over my life " overwhelm

feeling again.

I just want to cry. The more she struggles, the more my own anxiety and

depression worsen - even with my meds to treat them. And my own trauma memories

that are beginning to either surface or connect… I don't get a chance to process

them, because dd gets worse if I show anything less than stable emotions. Which

makes me worse. Classic vicious cycle.

I am so sick of this illness, and am disgusted at how unfair it is. I feel like

this has stolen my daughter and I'm parenting the pod person version. That

sounds mean and horrible, and I don't blame her or feel that way about her, but

I AM so overwhelmed, with literally no end in sight (lifetime condition), I'm

just sick.

So we're now home from church early because the kids' teacher forgot to prepare

a lesson, and this week's sermon covers a section of the Bible where Jesus heals

a young boy with a demon that makes him thrash around, burn himself, and various

other self-mutilating behaviors. Umm, yeah. Just the thing for an OCD

10-year-old. I love God, but I'm also mad at him.

I'm just sick of the whole thing. I know you guys understand, when so few

people do IRL.

-Angi